Comments

Comment by Slanter

First defeated by Paragon on January 16, 2011 after they downed Cho'gall heroic (They were the second guild to unlock the boss, after For the Horde). They then downed 25-Sinestra on the 20th.

World first raid comp:

2x DK (Both unholy)

3x Druid (2 Boomkin, 1 Feral tank)

2x Hunter (Both survival)

4x Mage (3 Fire, 1 Arcane)

4x Paladin (3 Holy, 1 Prot)

3x Priest (2 Holy, 1 Shadow)

3x Rogue (All Assassination)

3x Warlock (1 Affliction, 1 Destro, 1 Demo)

1x Warrior (Fury)

For a total of

18 DPS

5 Healers

2 Tanks

This is the post from their website announcing the kill:

We have just managed to kill Sinestra 25-man in heroic mode. We reached the boss as the second guild in the world. This was extremely disappointing, but we just had to suck it up, lick our wounds and push forward. Overall we spent five full days theorycrafting, practicing and relearning the fight.

The encounter itself was quite unfinished, especially on the first few days. There were some absolutely massive bugs that were obvious from the first pull; Shadow Orbs sweeping the whole room and killing everyone in the raid. The Dark Simulacrum (and other reflects) & Wrack was probably the biggest one. You could literally hit the boss for 1 billion damage with a single GCD - it was pretty damn scary watching Sinestra almost die to it by accident. Blizzard however fixed this within an hour or two after receiving the report.

There were still a bunch of hotfixes even between attempts; a tactic that could be used to handle a part of the fight wouldn’t just simply work at all on the next and just left us scratching our head. At these points, we often took theorycrafting breaks even up to an hour before figuring out what exactly we’re supposed to do next. Some people got pretty upset after the first sub-10% attempt, finding out that the tactic we used was unintended and hotfixed right afterwards.

Overall just a very weird raiding experience. Some good stuff, some bad stuff, some unfinished/buggy stuff, but definitely very stressful. Personally I’m not sure what to think of it quite yet.

All in all, this tier of raiding in my opinion has been the hardest tier of raiding overall. There haven’t been many pushover bosses on Heroic difficulty, there hasn’t been any gating, there haven’t been any attunements and such - it has just been one big absolutely brutal grind.

Probably the biggest difference between this tier and the previous ones have been the various bugs and exploits, sadly enough. There are also a lot of completely baseless rumours going around of us exploiting various bosses. Even some top guilds have made some pretty sad and misinformed comments based on nothing but hearsay and quotes from forum trolls, who have absolutely no first-hand knowledge at all.

We didn’t use any exploits/bugs whatsoever on Cho’gall. We didn’t use them on Nefarian. We didn’t use them on Sinestra. I’m not sure what all bosses there are even rumours about anymore, it’s hard to keep track of with the amount of trolls absolutely exploding everywhere.

It will all be completely obvious once we have time to get the videos done.

(##RESPBREAK##)2##DELIM##TheOnyx##DELIM##Edited initial sentence to make it more clear, cleaned up the discussion about the ambiguity. Thanks to the users to pointed it out!

Comment by michaelkrieger

any info about the boss' health pool ? it`s been kept secret. was hoping for a leak.

Comment by Dravian

They had a screenshot of DK's Dark Simalcrum hitting for 198 Million DMG.

They then stated in their post that they were scared that they almost one shotted the boss...

Sinestra on WoW-Progress is worth 15,000 Points. Nefarian and Cho'gall Are 4,500.

Deathwing has 878 Million health at the moment, according to seeing's in Hyjal.(His health may be increased, we might even see 1 billion :O )

If you look at all the factors, it could be well over 198 million, since this fight is suppose to be INCREDIBLY Hard.

Comment by Shibang909

Actually it was UNLOCKED by For The Horde first. Paragon got the world 2nd kill on Cho'gall and then beat FTH to the Sinestra kill.

Comment by Heenk

The recount window of their kill shows ~252 million total damage done. Presumably that's the boss + adds, so Sinestra by herself will probably have around 220 million HP.

Comment by Slanter

...which I stated in the post

Comment by chimps

"First unlocked by Paragon on January 16, 2011 after they downed Cho'gall heroic (They were the second guild to do so, after For the Horde)."

He was alluding to the fact that Paragon wasn't the first person to unlock it(...which was stated in your post). For the Horde was. Not the fact that Paragon killed it first.

Comment by ludibrium1

The make-up of the 25-man that downed her makes me wonder about the fight mechanics. Are there no adds to pick up or tank swapping mechanics to make it necessary for a second tank/off-tank? I haven't done enough Cata raiding yet to know if this is a common thing, just kinda curious.(##RESPBREAK##)2##DELIM##TheOnyx##DELIM##Edited to make comment standalone and detached from previous discussion.

Comment by Godisgrisen

Wanna be Kil'Jaeden,sitting in a pond of lava xD

Comment by Hinalover

According to Jhazrun of Paragon, the name of the chest that Sinestra drops is called "Cache of the Broodmother"

Comment by LegosyHS

@michaelkriegerThe sum of their recount = 254,433,871. So 254 million, but as mentioned adds may effect this. So it's certainly not higher than 255 Million... But considering their top dps was doing 30k, and most people I see running about do 15k at a push... 40 man raid, maybe it'd be easier xD

Legosy out

Comment by Hezkezl

Method just killed her on 25M, so Paragon released their video of the encounter:

Her total life is 128 Million. She starts off at 60% health then when you get her to 30%, she heals up to 100% AND gets a Mana Shield worth 2 million more damage. Between the all the adds, and her healing herself, the total damage done appears to be between ~238-254 million damage.(Method's screenshot of recount has a Total bar at the top, 238.9M, while Paragon's recount, when added up, shows 254.4M. As noted above by LegosyHS)

Comment by Hunterkip

Apparently, partway through the battle, Calen from some Twilight Highlands quests comes in. After watching a video on the fight (since I'll never see it), I noticed he kept calling Lady Sinestra, "Sintharia".

Is this a goof on Blizzard's part? Or was Lady Sinestra's name at one point Sintharia, like Deathwing was once known as Neltharion? And on that note, what exactly is she, is she still a black dragon, or has the magic they've been fooling around with transformed her into a twilight dragon?

Comment by Gweryan

Al'Akir heroic has recently be downed by "Dream". Just thought I'd add that seeing as you said he hasn't at the time.

Comment by Sincerity

I am sure, like many people, are here for two things, tactics/drops, and then the secret she is hiding.

So, with the other things such as world firsts being discussed, does anyone know her secret?

Comment by Mellro

she used to have onyxia's model and the only time you saw her was in shadowmoon valley at the nether drake daily place

Comment by Hinalover

After watching the fight for the last few hours I can deduce most of what is going on in the fight:

Sinestra has 128,838,000 Health in 25 man.

Flame Breath - cast once every 20 seconds in Phase 1 and Phase 3. This appears to be cast on a random member of the raid and anyone in the general area of where she casts this will be hit for the full brunt of the damage. However if you are standing further to the side of where she cast, you will take considerably less damage.

Shadow Orbs - Two orbs appear near two players. They need to kite the orbs near each other outside of the raid or do 75k damage to anyone in range. These appear once every 30 seconds in Phase 1 and Phase 3. The two kiters need to kite these for about 15 seconds.

Wrack - A debuff that is placed on a random player. This will do increasing 2k damage every two seconds (2k = 2 seconds, 4k = 4 seconds, 6k = 6 seconds, etc). If you dispel this debuff the buff will spread to two nearby players. The point is to dispel this around the 30 second mark. This appears to act similar to the debuff in Heroic Putricide. The entire debuff lasts for 1 minute.

During Phase 1 and Phase 3, five whelps will appear once every minute. These need to be AoEed/Cleaved down. As shown in Method's video these do not drop any void zone as previously hypothesized. However the eggs that line the outer edges of the fight are what generates the void zones in Phase 3 that make the area in which the fight takes place smaller.

The fight starts with her at 60%. Once she is brought down to 30%, she heals to full health and Phase 2 starts.

During Phase 2, Sinestra "technically" goes immune during this phase. Any damage done to her is healed up immediately. Range is to kill the Pulsing Twilight Eggs that are to each side of Sinestra. These eggs are what is healing Sinestra. These eggs also spew a shadowy zone that makes it so that melee cannot get to them. The Phase will end once these two eggs are killed. The melee and any extra range are to kill The Twilight Spitecaller that show up from the entrance to the fight. These cast Unleash Essence that lowers one's health by 10% each tick. These are cast every 10 seconds and need to be interrupted. These Spitecallers appear to come every 30 seconds. A fourth add, a Twilight Drake, is dpsed separately.

At the start of Phase 3, the raid will gain Essence of the Red, which provides a 100% haste to all raid members for 3 minutes.

I admit that this is probably not everything going on, but it's a good chunk of what is happening in the fight. Some stuff such as anything dealing with the Twilight Drake is unknown from watching the video.(##RESPBREAK##)140##DELIM##ArgentSun##DELIM##

Comment by jeffala

In Paragon's video (2:23), it shows that Sinestra has 128M health. However, based on another comment, she starts at 60%. You battle her down to 30%, whereupon she heals to full and throws up a mana shield.

The actual health you have to DPS down is 166.4M, plus the mana shield for whatever it is, plus the adds.

Comment by zodiac339

@GoldenYak: I thought Obsidia was a Twilight dragon, and the thing that was feared was that she was the first Twilight dragon to be fertile.

Comment by NightmareFH

They were talking about 25-man, NOT 10-man (reply to Deadlyspork)

Comment by NightmareFH

The raid make-up listing here is incorrect as it stands anyways.

Please refer to the top few posts to see the couple of corrections already made, and as soon as armory is back up again, it will be easy to tell where the rest of the mistakes were made.

Comment by Freechoice

Didn't anyone else get a Kil'jaeden vibe from the videos or even the screenshot?

I know it's obvious, but it's lazy of Blizzard and we are justified in QQ'ing about it.

Comment by Grubbs

She looks much more different from when you see her fly over Netherwing Ledge. Now she looks a little... beat up.

Comment by vindurza

she feeds on algalon's tears

Comment by rodmin

I just hope, but sincerely hope, that someday someone makes an Onyxia raid wipe parody for Sinestra someday.

Comment by SUSHOO

hmm she will be one of the most difficult bosses in cata..

Comment by Treskol

Sintharia, also known as Sinestra or Lady Sinestra, was the former prime consort of Deathwing and mother of Nefarian and Onyxia. Until recently, she was believed dead. Her experiments led to the creation of the Twilight Dragonflight, through which she planned to rule Azeroth. Her plans never came to fruition, and it was believed she was killed by her own creation, the twilight dragon Dargonax.

Sintharia was once the prime consort of Neltharion, who later came to be known as Deathwing. She gave birth to some of Deathwing's most despicable children including Nefarian and his sister, Onyxia. After Neltharion's madness overtook him and the rest of the black dragonflight, the newly disfigured Deathwing attempted to mate with his consorts, causing Sintharia a great deal of pain and leaving behind scars and burn marks. Sintharia was the only mate known to have survived.

Approximately five hundred years prior to the opening of the Dark Portal, Sintharia attempted to bring down the Kirin Tor with a curse that left the wizards unable to use their magic. Her scheme was foiled in part by Korialstrasz, consort to Alexstrasza, and when Sintharia was defeated, most believed her to be dead. She survived, however, and forsook her mate and children, taking on the guise of Lady Sinestra, a name she came to use as a dragon as well.

Sintharia had the unfortunate experience of surviving mating with Deathwing - a creature largely composed of molten lava. The experience left her with half of her face literally melted away, and the scars on her face and body continued to burn, thousands of years later - more than enough to drive Sintharia completely insane. Besides that, there were voices speaking to her while she slept that assured her creating a new dragonflight was a very good idea.

Despite her apparent demise in Night of the Dragon, Sinestra has returned in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. She is the 'true' final boss encounter in the Bastion of Twilight in Grim Batol, accessible only after beating Cho'gall on Heroic difficulty. It is revealed that she's birthing a clutch of black dragon eggs that are to be turned into twilight dragon eggs.

Calen (better known as Caelestrasz from Temple of Ahn'Qiraj) also appears in his night elf guise during the Sinestra encounter. In this fight, he does battle with Sinestra, only to lose his life in the process. Upon dying, he grants the raid a 3 minute buff, granting 100% additional haste.

Comment by killars

Comment by MakaPL

Looks like a fusion of Ridley and Kraid from Metroid series.

Comment by Syntic

Dies just like Kil'jaeden even looks like him before an encounter (pose)

Comment by Ramesh256

Blizzard needs to stop killing off characters who are only somewhat evil. The lore is really messed up when filled with "A group of adventurers killed ------," etc. Seriously, in Night of the Dragon Sintharia wasn't really THAT bad. . . why did Blizzard have to kill her, Al'Akir, and presumably Ragnaros off? Hopefully, that doesn't happen to Deathwing.

Comment by Eatmypie

Comment by citrique

This encounter is somewhat complex to learn and requires a lot of trial and error to figure out what will work for your raid composition, but is very easy once you get it right.

We ended up 5-healing it with two doing dispels. We used two tanks (DK + warrior) with no backup.

Phase 1 is easy enough. Sinestra starts at 60% and has a debuff which causes all damage she does to be reduced by 40%. Getting her to 30% starts phase 2. We bloodlusted at the start to get out of this phase quickly as bloodlust is relatively useless in phase 3 due to the essence of the red buff. Her P1/P3 abilities of note:

- : ~50K to entire raid P1, ~85K P3 after resistances

- : Dispellable dot with 60 sec duration which jumps to 2 raid members with the remaining duration, when dispelled. We were able to have this dot last up to 20 seconds on the first player and 20 on the next two, dispelling it with 10 left afterwards. Note that you cannot bubble/iceblock it off (it will jump to 2 players if you do), however a DK with AMS up can immune it if they happen to be one of the targets when it jumps, having this happen makes it much easier to deal with. A new 60 sec application of the dot will occur just before the first series of dots fall off, it's imperative that dispellers are aware who has a new wrack immediately as players can have multiple copies and dispelling this early is an instant wipe. This requires macro, vent call or very well set-up addons.

- - two twilight orbs will spawn at random locations in proximity to players. After two seconds, a beam will come out from each orb and target a player. After two more seconds the orbs will become active and do approximately 30K/sec damage to players within a few yards, and will be connected by a twilight slicer beam which does 60K/0.5s damage to players hit by it. There is no debuff that players can use to see they have an orb attached to them, they must visibly see the orb beam targeting them and get out of the raid immediately. BigWigs and other boss mods attempt to detect who has orbs because the orb has an aggro table and targets the player it's going to stick to, but this is unreliable. The two players will generally run halfway to the back of the room, criss-cross each other, then run back towards the raid reaching it just as the orbs dissipate in order to maximize DPS. Do not use aggro dropping abilities if an orb targets you.

Twilight Whelp spawn 5 at a time every 50 sec. These must not be DPSed until phase 2 and will be offtanked. The whelps melee for about 10K on tanks and have a breath which applies .

Phase 2 is the most complex: Sinestra heals to full health and gains a mana shield which absorbs all damage done and converts mana to health. Calen appears and puts up his barrier which the raid needs to stand in to avoid being one-shotted by twilight extinction. What we did at this point was we had only melee DPS on the whelps and ranged DPS focus on Sinestra. We AOEd the first 10 whelps down at the back left corner of the room just inside the barrier, then when they respawned we took them to the back right and AOEd them all down there (whelps cannot die on top of the seeping twilight essence pools left behind when they die the first time, or they respawn again). All whelps need to be dead before the first add (2.9M HP) spawns.

For the back: We had two healers dedicated to Calen/melee, and our ret pally used Lay on Hands on him for a free million+ healing. The adds spawn about every 40 sec and are DPSed exclusively by melee. This add will cast an ability called which will pretty much wipe the raid if it is successfully cast. However, interrupting this ability with a standard interrupt or stun effect causes the add to gain the buff, doing a 40K AOE and becoming immune to all CC (this effect can be shiv'ed or tranq shotted off). To interrupt this cast, we had two rogues with glyphed gouge doing a rotation. Hungering cold, rogue blind, hunter scatter shot and death grip can also interrupt the cast safely as backup. Each add must die before the next add becomes attackable. Melee DPS should take next to no damage as no casts should get off and the adds don't hit terribly hard (20K on a tank).

For the middle: Twilight Drake adds with ~4M HP will spawn every 40 sec or so. These were solo tanked and mostly ignored by DPS for the entirety of phase 2. They have a shadow breath and melee relatively hard. The tank handling these must not have stacks of or the breath can one-shot them.

For the front: Ranged DPS will split evenly between the eggs and DPS Sinestra. When her mana drops to half she will remove the shield surrounding the two Twilight Eggs to restore her mana to full, making the eggs attackable. All ranged DPS must then immediately kill the eggs. When both die, phase 3 starts.

Phase 3 is the same as phase 1 positioning-wise.

The remaining spitecaller add is DPSed on the go by melee as they move to the front and should be dead ASAP. The 3 twilight drakes are burned down by ranged DPS as soon as they are in range. The first drake should die just as the third drake is targetable. Breaths, Wrack and orbs are handled the same way, except Sinestra no longer has 40% reduced damage and starts at full HP.

Calen dies and gives the raid Essence of the Red, giving the raid more or less infinite mana and 100% haste for the 3 minute duration, the two remaining drakes should die in seconds with this buff up.

The most complicated part of the phase is dealing with whelps. We would allow 10 whelps to spawn, then the whelp tank would run to the wall on the right side of the room right back into the eggs, about 40-50y out of melee range. All ranged DPS would then turn and AOE the whelps down, melee would stay on Sinestra. This strat had the raid as a whole moving the least during this phase, as the only players needing to move were the whelp tank and players with orbs who would be far away from them. This also allowed the whelp tank to generate enough aggro on them for it to persist through their first death so that the tank could run back into melee range of Sinestra - when the 10 whelps respawned, they would run to this tank in melee and the entire raid including melee cleaved them down before the next new set of whelps would spawn. We did a tank swap at this point so the new whelp tank had no debuff stacks and the old one wouldn't be 2-shotted by Wrack if they happened to get it. We did two rounds of whelp kills this way, then the remaining whelps were offtanked and ignored for the rest of the fight. The essence of the red buff fell off with the boss at about 25% and we blew all remaining cooldowns to finish her off before the room became too filled with seeping twilight essence pools. Hymn/tranq/bubble sac were used for every breath.

The big keys to downing this boss are:

- Dealing with whelps properly and having the specific people assigned to them DPSing them when called- Dealing with wrack properly and not dispelling it too early/late- Killing both twilight eggs in a single pass without their shield going back up, this is a wipe if it occurs- Not screwing up orbs, player reaction time and individual responsibility plz

Updated for 4.2 as most players in Firelands gear should be doing more DPS.

Comment by Armanewb

Sinestra cannot parry. A whole night of attempts with zero parries across the whole raid confirms this, so melee can spread across the entire front without fear of DPS loss, unless they need to be behind her for things like Backstab.

Comment by celio22

I think it's funny she could survive mating with Deathchin, but not a ragtag group of adventurer's flinging spells and swinging swords.

Comment by Mellro

Also it says that she was kileld by her own brood but she was revived and the model you see is her torn and thrashed carapace as a result of her brood..brutaly murdering her.

Comment by FireKatKid

To fight Sinestra, do you need to beat -all- Bastion enemies on heroic, or just Cho'gall?

Comment by nebrow

I dont understand why everyone is going on about there being no more black dragonflight. Ive killed ony like 3 times now, and Nefarion twice. Sinestra and Deathwing probably have a few lives left in em. I mean, #$%^ I hung the heads of Nefarion and Ony up in SW, and they came back.

Comment by mrachnyi

I will, forever and always, refer to Sinestra as Sinestro. But I am a comic nerd, and I finally decided to post my 2 cents because I couldn't hold in the Sinestra-Sinestro similarity =)

Comment by Ghostlyghost

The recycling of the Kil`Jaeden skeleton could also be justified in a few other ways. For one: Kil`Jaeden had a great skeleton, and most raiders these days have no interest in fighting Kil`Jaeden for non-novelty purposes. The people who would notice wouldn`t have to worry over it, so what if you see the same skeleton twice? Does anyone have a real idea of how many times we've seen the skeleton for, say, an orc? Or a night elf? Despite a bit of recycling, it's still an exceptionally rare skeleton, people who actually see it in-game can be classified as lucky, atleast on the servers I come from. It could even be considered a bit of a nerd joke directly from Blizzard that older players could laugh about at the confused newer players. It's like how Stan Lee is in all of the Marvel movies, and only the people who know who Stan Lee is are actually aware of that.

Comment by Blasterion

Deathwing's attempts of .....having baby dragons with Sinestra has left her scarred for life. Burning lava stuff is not good for you even if they are dragons I guess. (true story, she supposely has a scarred face in human form)

Comment by Derangera

Comment by Namnalia

As I was unable to find any decent words about the current (people maxed out in FL gear) 10-man approach, we found out how to deal with her ourselves. To spare you some wipes, here is what you need to know about the 10-man version:

Phase 1:- Wrack deals damage every 2s and becomes nearly unhealable after more than 20s. As our healers were stressed enough, the players who actually had Wrack called out after 15s to be dispelled "soon", giving the healers some freedom on handling the best moment. - The DPS requirement of P1 are ridiculous with current gear, we were able to beat the second Wrack by more than 20s without using Heroism which made P3 a lot easier.- The welplings die very fast, our tank was able to kill half them on her own during P1.- to handle the slicers, we just lined up on the right side of the area, people who were chased ran left, everyone else ran right if he/she had to.

Phase 2:- 3 Ranged DPS players are more than sufficient to kill one egg within one Carapace-down-Phase, so you'll effectively have 2 of these phases. -Not interrupting the Unleash Essence will nearly immediately wipe you, so we established a stun rotation for these.- A paladin heal on Caleb can LoH him for more than a million HP.

Phase 3:- Basically the very same strategy as in P1. Blow your CDs, use the most expensive heals you have, don't mess up Wrack and Slicers and you're done. A paladin tank can just shrug of the whelp's debuff, buying a lot of healer time. When you don't mess up early, you'll beat the essence of the red timer by nearly a minute, so don't panic, just consider it as P1 with double casting speed and less space. Our main problem was the application of the second wrack in the middle of the phase, so just be communicative about it.

Comment by Deyllo

In order to get to this boss you haft to defeat Cho'Gall in heroic mode before since he will walk to the middle and fall down which creates a hole on the ground, right?

Comment by Eighjan

Comment removed - Centaurian ^^^^ beat me to it.

Comment by kryzflavored

I don't mean to nit pick, but she has a terrible overbite.Like the models of the firehawks and Deathwing, the jaw hinge isn't where it's should be.

Comment by Emrysx

Drops:Boots of Az'galadaHer name in demonic is "Az'Galada" -hence the name of the boots :)

Comment by ArchaicSentinel

Here's a bit of advice for this fight that are VERY crucial and unmentioned in a LOT of the comments:

Shadowy Orbs - Do not pop Mirror Images or use ANY threat reduction abilities when these things are due out simply due to the fact that if the Orbs target the caster initially, it will automatically find a new target if the caster used any threat reduction abilities... So be warned, it's STRONGLY advised not to use these abilities when orbs are coming out.

Also strongly advised to pop heroism in this phase as early as possible.

P2 - On average, you'll see at least 1 Spitecaller for this phase (ideally if your dps on eggs are high, you should only see the spitecaller while transitioning into P3). Ranged should assist with the spitecaller before P3 actually starts.

P3 - Same rules as p1 for Wrack dispels, key thing to watch for is when the Wrack affects 4-6 people and a Flame Breath is coming out, it's ideal to pop a raid cooldown at this time (Aura Mastery, T13 tank CD's etc). You pretty much have to pop a raid CD for 2 consecutive breaths depending on how many Wracks are out. Once that Wrack wears off, healing becomes a bit easier to handle.

Ideal raid comp would be 3 heals (esp with new groups since you can have orbs spawn on both healers and that can be very bad RNG for p3 depending on Wrack/tank damage/Flame Breaths)

Comment by Mormolyce

The ugly face of draconic domestic abuse.

Comment by MasterGaming101

Does anyone else want to know what will happen if you switch the raid back to normal while your in her lair?

Comment by MetalheroDamien

Out of curiousity, is it possible to continue from a save ON Sinestra? I've heard anticdotal evidence that the hole seals up again, and with no Cho, you can't open it up again.

Comment by Grimbard

Got her down a couple nights ago – most of the group was in ilvl 400+ gear, but still a tough fight. Here are a few tips for the ‘average’ person/group that is trying to get Sinestra down at this point in time (late Cataclysm expansion).

Watching some video on this fight is pretty much essential (we watched the Vox Immortalis Heroic Sinestra video on youtube). Simply put, you can’t have 1-2 people (or more) who don’t know exactly what to do - there are a few key elements in the fight (e.g. Wrack, Orbs) that will easily wipe any group that has an unprepared member. Don't expect to be able to carry anyone.

Even if you all know the basics of the fight, be mentally prepared to wipe. We had several Firelords & Saviors in our group and it still took us 50+ attempts. Even at current gear levels, it’s not an easy fight.

Healers should install Sinestra Wrack Helper – it’s a very useful add-on that shows who Wrack is on and how long it has been on them. I also found it useful to have some indication on my raid frames as to who had Wrack on them. I use Grid, and I had it show Wrack as a bright red outline on the Wrack targets.

Communication between healers is also essential in P3 so that 2-3 healers aren’t trying to dispel the same person and wasting valuable GCD’s.

Set up marks on the ground so people know where to run to for kiting orbs and where to loosely group up when orbs are not up.

Having a Pally tank for the whelps in P3 would be useful to be able to bubble off the stacks of debuff the whelps put on. We didn’t have one, and it took us some time to get the tank swaps figured out. Fortunately, the tanks we did have were great (but not having to tank swap would have been preferable).

For Wrack, we waited as long as we could (21 seconds) when it was on just one person before dispelling it. After that, it was just a matter of watching Sinestra Wrack Helper and dispelling it off of people once it got to 17-18 seconds. Unlike what happens during the Vox Immortalis video, you will probably have to dispel it off the group a 4th time (having a priest with Mass Dispel is useful for this, because 8/10 people will have Wrack on them at this point).

Don’t give up! Again, we wiped lots of times, but sooner or later everything will just work out, the RNG will be in your favour and you’ll get her down. Then you’ll be thinking “That was easy – why did we wipe so many times on this?”

Cheers,

Grim

Comment by brudarek

With current gear levels, is it possible to cheese things by just off tanking whelps the whole fight?

Comment by brudarek

Some tips after downing her (1 night, ~40 pulls) that may save you a few wipes.

With current gear, the fight isn't as hard as everyone makes it out to be. It is still fun though as it's exactly at the point where you still can't skip any mechanics.

First 'problem' you will have, everything happens extremely fast, you'll be in p2 and p3 before you even notice. The fight is all about P3. Be ready for the transitions. Call them out, have range call out when shield goes down and when eggs are about to die in P2.

Ideal raid comp for 10 man (imo): 2 tanks, 2 heals, 4 range, 2 melee- gives you 2 range dps on each egg and 2 melee dps to deal with the other adds in P2, which works out perfectly- 3rd heal may give a buffer for mistakes, but most screwups are nearly instant death so it's debatable and would unbalance egg dps and lower whelp ranged aoe

DPS goals:- get to P2 (30%) with only 1 wrack and 1 set of orbs- blow hero at start as it won't help much in P3- eggs dead in 1 mana shield phase, though not a big deal to take 2 rounds, just means extra adds- P2 whelps dead x2 just as drake add comes down- drake add dead just as spitecaller comes in and P3 starts- P3 whelps dead x2 in between 1 orb spawn and the next- boss within burn range after killing 4 whelp packs

Orbs:- player awareness and reaction to orb spawns is key, you can't rely on mods- in 10 man, range+heals can make a loose line towards yellow so there's no one to the left or right, makes it easy to see who an orb is on- don't stand under an orb or between the orbs when they spawn (this is where clumping or stacking causes problems)- be moving a bit as soon as orbs are visible so you can tell if one is on you (pink laser beam)- if you don't have an orb, take a step to the right or towards tank(melee), kiters going to back left- the 'cross over' move that the 2 orb kiters do is intuitive so doesn't need a big explanation- healers/dispelers need to communicate when 1 of them is kiting and watch for kiters with wrack going out of dispel range- whelp tank needs to make sure to pick up whelps as they come in, orb+whelp = dazed = dead- do not use mirror image in P1/P3, they will screw up orbs

Wrack dispels: - get the wrackhelper addon- have 1 healer be the primary who controls the 1st dispel- key times: 1st dispel 21s+, 2nd 17s, 3rd 11s- push 1st dispel as far past 21s as the healer is comfortable with, person with wrack should use personal c/d for latter part of it- doing 2nd dispel @17 and 3rd @11 means <11sec left on 4th set of wrack, ie. no need to dispel- if you have a priest, have your primary call for mass dispel on 4 wracks in P3- make sure to pickup out of range players for mass dispel

P2 drake:- must be picked up by the P1 boss tank, whelp tank debuf is bad

P3 spitecaller:- do not interrupt the spell cast (kick, counterspell, rebuke etc..) or stun them- do not interrupt the spell cast (kick, counterspell, rebuke etc..) or stun them!- must stop the Unleash Essence cast with other abilities- this includes: disorient, knockback, deathgrip, hibernate, fear, gouge, scatter shot, repentance, blind etc...- you should only have to stop 1 cast, but have a 2nd player ready just in case- have the player doing the interrupt replace their regular interrupt with the ability they'll be using, people have the reflex to hit that key so make use of it.- have a tranq shot ready just in case someone screws up- will likely be killed as you're moving into P3 position, so have P3 whelp tank pick it up and all dps kill quickly

Whelps:- should be aoe'd down- will respawn after 1st death due to puddle, after killing them a 2nd time they stay dead and do not drop a 2nd puddle- take a long time to reach the raid after they spawn

- just tank them in P1- wait for 2nd pack to reach the raid at the start of P2 before you aoe them- have everyone but range (who are dps'ing mana shield) stand on whelp kill spot to help group up the incoming ones- melee will likely be doing 2nd kill on whelps while range gets on eggs

- coordination of whelp kills with everything else in P3 was our biggest stumbling point- kill whelps 1 pack (5) at a time- use orb spawns as your timer- as orb kiters start moving left, whelp tank should be moving to kill spot and calling for range aoe- after whelps die, whelp tank moves back to melee- when whelps respawn, they will move to the whelp tank due to residual aggro- in melee range they can be cleaved and aoe'd while gaining some extra dps on the boss- 2nd death should be finished just before next orbs spawn in- repeat 3x and collect your shiny new title- tank swap after 2 packs due to debuff (or paladin tank bubbles it off), have boss tank pick up any new whelps while old ones are being killed, then have whelp tank taunt off- we put pack 1&2 in the back right by the P2 whelp puddle, and 3&4 by the front left to leave space for orb kiting- for 3&4 whelp tank should move across the front of the room to stay out of the orb kiting zone- by pack 5+ you should be in a position to offtank whelps and push the boss

P3 flamebreath:- you'll want a raid cooldown on each flamebreath after the 1st one- figure out the order of who's hitting what ahead of time and communicate them in p3

P3 essence of red buff:- mana regen buff means you don't need to conserve mana through P1 & P2, it will all regen in P3 and refill faster than you can use it

Comment by brudarek

Anyone know where Twilight Flames damage comes from? Can't trace it back to a source, best guess I have is the flame wall that blocks access to the eggs on the sides and closes the room at the back.

Comment by Alacor

Kil'jaeden in disguise...shhht it's a secret hihihihihi

Comment by Everliving14

The healing phase is bypassed by Bloodworms and high DPS. Use an item level of 530 or higher.

Comment by AtrumDeus

10man Heroic Solo-able Ret Pally 560IL. Start by burning the boss until she heals to 100%. Stay to the right side.(Your right)Then continue burning (Her mana will be draining not her health) while using divine storms to kill whelps around you. When the message comes up saying the barrier around the eggs is down quickly kill the egg to the right of the boss then haul ass to the egg on the far left. Once thats down just return to the boss and burn while continuing to cast divine storms to kill off the whelps.

Note: Use bubble to get rid of the debuff when it gets too many stacks.

Comment by zookni

Easily soloable with 630+ MM hunter on 25HC.Important tips:- burst at the start of the encounter because if you get hit by wrack, you are dead.- kill all the whelps (barrage does the job, don't forget to run while killing them so that they are not dying on each other)- when she gets the barrier up, use stampede and get as close to the eggs as you can, nuke boss, the adds don't hurt so you can leave them up or kill them with barrage aoe.- after you kill the eggs, you can use petheroism and dismiss it quickly (if you go with lonewolf), you can nuke her down in 20seconds, don't bother with killing the adds in the last phase.

Comment by shadosan

Pretty sure that's a recent bug, but i had Calen lose his protective bubble around him, and healing him had simply no effect. He die within 20-30 seconds of 2nd phase start, making the fight impossible.

Comment by Angelhearth

SOLOING SINESTRA 25HC

DK Frost 100 ilvl 643. Easy kill if you understand what you're doing, which wasn't easy since I didn't find any good guides.

Phase 1 Just get her down from her initial 60 to 30% health. Kill the Whelps where you will be staying in Phase 3 so you can stay in the pools and not being hit by Wrack. First you kill them, they will respawn, now kill them outside a pool or they will respawn again.

Phase 2 Nuke her until she uses the eggs on either side to replenish (mana pops back to 100%!), that's when the eggs will be killable. Now, run over to one of the eggs and kill it, then run to the other and kill it as well. You have to be quick so if your class doesn't have anything usefull get Draenic Swiftness Potion for the run between the eggs.

Phase 3 Kill her. If you stand in the pools from Phase 1 you will have no problems. Don't bother with the adds, if the damage from the adds is to great just throw out an AEO spell now and again.

Phase 2 is ALL about speed, both in getting her mana down and running between the eggs.Phase 3 is ALL about not taking damage.

Comment by tchimp

Soloed - Wrack wiped me so many times, it is not casted on tanks therefore if you're tanking the whelps Sinestra will not cast it! Therefore simply don't bother killing the whelps. Had to look at a video on youtube to realise. Everything else is easy, check out comments below for details on removing egg shields etc.

GL

Comment by kurasii

Someone else mentioned this, or else I'd think I'm doing something wrong.... Calen's bubble is disappearing during the 2nd phase for me. This takes me out of combat and ends the fight :(

This happens sometimes before I even get the message saying the eggs are vulnerable.One time it allowed me to kill an egg, but then wrack promptly killed me.All the other times it gave the egg message, but then the eggs were still absorbing everything.

I could still be doing something wrong - this is the first time I've tried this fight. But I've read the comments and watched the fight videos, and I'm getting a little annoyed at this dragon!

Edit: About an hour and several youtube videos later, I'm able to progress further into the fight.... once I initially killed the first 5 whelps and the pools form, I just let the whelps attack me while I got into position to attack the first egg. I was able to kill both the eggs before retreating into one of the pools and zerging Sinestra. I wasn't able to do it fast enough I suppose, because I slowly died.

I thought I got smart, so trying this technique a 2nd time, I wasn't able to duplicate the results..... I didn't get the message that the eggs were vulnerable, and upon attacking an egg, it just absorbed my attacks....

3rd time trying this technique, I got the message that I could attack the eggs, but they only absorbed my attacks, and the fight quickly ended.

Back to the drawing board. I put in a bug report and ticket about this, we'll see.........

Edit 2: Just downed her today! I died 2 times before getting it. Zoronden's video helped me. I'm a hunter so I made sure to dismiss my pet - being BM this sucked, but I managed it. During the last zerg phase, I used a Shieldtronic Shield I got from Blingtron, lol... that's what allowed me to win. I got to about 5% health even with using the shield, it was super close. Once I dismissed my pet, all 3 tries, I got the message that the eggs were vulnerable, AND they were attackable!

Comment by buriedvoid

Died at least 20 times before giving up on my Hunter. I know I'm doing something wrong. Tried both as BM and MM with no pet. Keep getting Wrack before any whelps are even spawned, then I insta die a few seconds after shield goes up. Any help?

Comment by Zoronden

I had trouble doing this from just the notes here and a lot of the videos on YouTube aren't really that helpful. So I put together a short 3 min guide on doing this at level 100

Comment by shaclad

Trying to solo for the first time since Christmas after months of soloing no problems and I simply cannot do it.

Calen keeps dying in P3, every single time.

The eggs are a 50/50 if they allow you to attack them, and if they don't get ready to wipe.

Wrack is hitting me every single attempt...did I mention I was soloing this?

The Twilight Blast is being chain casted at me during P3 also, which is unsurviveable at 50k per hit on top of everything else.

This fight definitely is NOT the same as it was just a few weeks ago. In the 8 times I killed it before this, I never had wrack once, Calen never died (didn't even know it was possible), and I never felt like it was a challenge per se, until now.

Comment by fosley

Did this on 25H as a 630 demo lock. Used my felguard, turned threatening presence *off*, then stood in her face so she'd see me as a tank and not cast Wrack. During Twilight Extinction I ran back under the barrier just in case, then continued to nuke her until the eggs were attackable. Killed the eggs, then ran back to her face and blew her up. I saved my Hand of Gul'dan charges for Chaos Wave when the adds started stacking up, and otherwise had no trouble blowing her up.

Comment by Thieonos

Level 100 - How to SOLO at lvl 100

Even with all the comments and guides written here in this section I think most that I read are still a bit fuzzy. I just completed the kill on my Ret pally at lvl 100, I decided to explain it the easiest way I can understand hopefully this will make it easier for some of you out there.

Phase #1

There is like a weaker version of the boss at first just hurry up and damage it until it dies. (goes into the next phase)

Phase #2A.Step 1 First start damaging the boss after a few seconds a wizard dude comes to help by casting a laser like spell to attack the boss.B. After this wizard comes to help you the boss (Sinestra) will no longer take health damage from your attacks. (Don't ask me why, I don't understand it either. Mainly there needed to be some decent mechanics to make the fight interesting.) Now all your damage is only reducing the boss' mana supply.

Step 2 Keep doing damage until Sinestra's mana gets to 0, or around 0, then the wizard dude is going to shout something like you're getting weaker Sinestra.

C. Sinestra's mana will be fully replenished after getting to about 0.

Step 3 Once Sinestra's mana supply is fully replenished to like 2000k (or whatever it might be at max mana) then attack one of the two eggs you might have noticed on the sides earlier. (The shields the eggs have on them come off when Sinestra replenishes her mana.) So kill one of them as soon as Sinestra repenishes her mana. If you are on a warlock you might be able to kill both before the shield comes back. If you are unable to kill both eggs before the shield returns then you will have to repeat Step 2 and then kill the other egg.

Phase 3

At this point Sinestra goes into crazy attack mode and has no more defenses against your damaging attacks. The wizard guy that is helping you explains he's a wuss and asks you to finish the beast off, then dies.

Step 4Sinestra will be calling in ads but they are weak at lvl 100 so just keep doing most of your AoE attacks and direct all your focus on Sinestra and you will take her down.

P.S. I hope this explanation was easier to understand because almost every other post I saw was pretty confusing.

Comment by schnizol

Nothing fancy at lvl 100. As a mage I just DPS'd her. When she put mana barrier on, I kept DPSing until her mana was burned. Then I destroyed eggs, and DPS'd more. I was killing adds when they started to screen my character too much. No need even for heals... Kinda lame.

Comment by Porrim

Heads up to any fellow gladiators taking Sinestra on: Shield Charging has a possibility of sending you on a wild goose chase all over the area before eventually ending up next to her in the lava.

Worth seeing once just for kicks and giggles, but it's pretty much an assured death otherwise.

Comment by Tykes

Phase one: get her HP down > she'll use mana barrier.Phase two: get her mana down Phase three: kill both eggsPhase four: kill Sinestra

Just did this as a 100 combat rogue, nothing to be worried about (Leeching Poison is your friend).

Comment by Strickens

This fight seems to be buggy right now, as no matter how hard I DPS (633 Destro warlock) her mana is regenerating faster than I can deplete it on 25H.

Comment by Micia

Easily done on H25 as a DK at an extremely low ilvl of 626 (just did it tonight). Specced Frost for this fight. The only 'hard' part is knocking down her mana shield fast enough. Hence the Frost spec for it's front-loaded burst. With triggering all cooldowns/trinkets + Empower Rune Weapon (after depleting existing runes), you can easily obliterate your way through it.

Once it's down, use Death's advance to get to the first egg, use a swiftness potion to get to the second.

The rest is easy. Just DPS with a Death Strike/Death Pact sprinkled throughout to stay alive.

Small tip I noticed; Use soul reaper on the egg below 45%. It insta-kills the egg at that level. You can be halfway across the room towards the second egg before it dies, giving you ample time to reach the second egg before the barrier goes back up :)

Comment by hucking

There seems to be a bit of random element whether Sinestra throws her Wrack at you or not, if she does, and you do not have a way to dispell it, you will die. 1 minute into the fight she throws 170k dmg from Wrack, followed by 300k and more if you don't dispell it, and I don't see a way to do this as a boomkin.

However I must note that I tried the fight with my resto spec and while I have had little luck, the encounter reset without me dying due to the wizard dying, and so I re-specced to boomkin and was almost able to take her out but I died because I didn't take out the ads in time and didn't use my healing enough.

It seems like if you can get an encounter where she doesn't Wrack that's the only way to do it unless you can dispell it. Weird stuff. Hopefully Blizzard explains themselves or fixes it, but I doubt it.

EDIT: And indeed a few minutes later I tried to do the same thing, obviously once I had to re-enter the raid she would still wrack me and I died trying it as boomkin but I just did what I said earlier, re-speced into resto, waited until wizard dies, boss reset, re-speced into boomkin and was able to kill her since she didn't use her wrack on me.

Comment by spoonymog

LVL 100 FERAL

iLVL 660

Scroll out as far as you can so you can see the eggs.

Phase #1 Damage until Calen comes in to help.

Phase #2 Damage until the eggs shields are down, basically you are burning her mana. Right before their shields go down, Calen will say "Sinestra, you're beginning to weaken!", do not stop damaging until the purple beams from Sinestra go to the eggs (this is why you are scrolled out).

You should be able to go to run normally to egg one, then use Dash to get to egg two. If not, use Displacer Beast too.

Phase 3 & 4This hurts. Do your rotation, pop Survival Instincts, use Bite, Healing Touch procs, and throw in a Rejuv as much as you need to, and burn her down.

Don't worry about the adds, just worry about burning Sin. Pop all the cooldowns.

And that should be it. Good luck!

Comment by Jeolene

Not exactly sure what changed in the last week here, but it doesn't matter what class I am, this cannot be soloed any longer. I've been doing it for months now, but before I even get to phase 2, I just get one-shot without actually being hit by anything.

Comment by Ishk

This fight is so incredibly stupid right now. I can't do this on some of my alts just because I can't move fast enough without investing in speed pots. I can dps her down to break the barrier on the eggs once, but after I try to reach the second egg I'm out of time from running to the first. Her mana does not go down the same way after the first barrier break and I can never get the other egg because Calen dies. They really need to her mana regeneration during that phase.

Comment by nickychan

Just did this as an Elemental Shaman lv.100

For a range toon to solo her

You need to be in the melee range from the start so you count as a tank and will not get WrackWrack will kill you if you get the debuff.

Comment by halies

Comment by Yaldrik

Just an fyi for people who didnt know like me but you have to get chogall to very low health and then let him walk to the middle of the room where he dies and breaks through the floor opening the pathway to sinestra.

Comment by HeKol

On an average of 10 runs Sinestra 25HC rewards 117 gold, 85 silver and 1 copper after vendoring dropped gear.

Comment by leelopaloo

Guardian druid, here. Level 106 with 764 level gear. Just solo'd Sinestra by using Moonfire to zap the eggs when they become vulnerable. I ran just far enough to use Moonfire, then ran back the other direction to zap the second egg. Then maul the crap out of her until you get your kill. Good luck!

Sinestra yells: I tire of this. Do you see this clutch amidst which you stand? I have nurtured the spark within them, but that life-force is and always will be mine. Behold, power beyond your comprehension!

Sinestra yells: Powerless....

Sinestra yells: We were fools to entrust an imbecile like Cho'gall with such a sacred duty! I will deal with you intruders myself!

Sinestra yells: You mistake this for weakness? Fool!

Related

Heroic

Deadly

Important

Tank

DPS

Healer

Interruptible

Magic

Curse

Poison

Disease

Enrage

Tooltips and dungeon journal reflect ability values for one encounter version. Please refer to "Effect" section on spell pages to see values for all raid sizes and difficulties.

At the outset of the battle, Sinestra is weakened from past battles and from nurturing the Twilight brood. She begins with only 60% of her maximum health, and her damage dealt is reduced by by 40%.

Wrack
– Sinestra causes a random player to suffer Shadow damage every 2 sec. for 1 min. with the damage taken increasing rapidly. When a player dispels Wrack, it bounces to two nearby allies of the afflicted player. Wrack retains its remaining duration but returns to its original damage values.

Flame Breath
– Sinestra unleashes a torrent of flame that sweeps across her platform, inflicting 19950 to 22050 Fire damage to all enemies.

Twilight Slicer
– Sinestra summons two shadowy orbs, each of which fixates on a player and begins to pursue that player. These spheres are linked together by a cutting beam of pure twilight energy that inflicts 12025 to 13975 Shadow damage per 5 sec. to any player who comes into contact with the beam.Each sphere also pulses twilight energy, inflicting 7020 to 8580 Shadow damage every 0.5 sec in a 5 yard radius. The orbs dissipate after 15 sec.

Twilight Whelps
– Sinestra periodically calls forth a set of five Twilight Whelps to attack intruders.

Twilight Spit
– The Twilight Whelps spit shadowy bile on their target, inflicting 741 to 819 Shadow damage and increasing the target's Shadow damage taken by 10%. This effect stacks.

Twilight Essence
– When a Twilight Whelp dies, the essence instilled in it by Sinestra leaks out, forming a bubbling puddle beneath its corpse. If this essence touches any other dead Twilight Whelp, that Whelp reanimates. Each pool of Twilight Essence expands over time. The pools inflict 2590 to 3010 Shadow damage every 2 sec.

Twilight Carapace
– The Pulsing Twilight Eggs are normally impervious to all damage. In moments of dire need, Sinestra directly siphons from the eggs and causes their Twilight Carapace to drop temporarily.

Twilight Spitecaller
– These twilight dragonkin periodically stream into the room during the clash between Calen and Sinestra.

Unleash Essence
– The Twilight Spitecaller releases a torrent of twilight energy that afflicts all nearby enemies, inflicting damage equal to 10% of each target's maximum health every 1 sec. Conventional interrupts cannot prevent the casting of the spell, but other effects that cause loss of control may be effective.

Indomitable
– If a Twilight Spitecaller is incapacitated for more than a brief period of time, it regains control through a surge of sheer will. The Spitecaller becomes immune to all bonds and restraints until a player removes this effect, and inflicts 11200 Shadow damage and knocks back players within 8 yards.

Twilight Drake
– Twilight Drakes swoop in from the sides of the cavern during the clash between Calen and Sinestra.

Absorb Essence
– If a Twilight Drake comes into contact with a pool of Twilight Essence, it siphons that energy and causes the pool to shrink and eventually vanish entirely. Each charge of Essence absorbed increases the Drake's damage by 10%, and its health by 10%. This effect stacks.

Once the players destroy the Pulsing Twilight Eggs, Sinestra brings her magical duel with Calen to an end and attacks the players with her full fury. Empowered by the twilight eggs from which she reclaims her siphoned energy, Sinestra no longer deals reduced damage.

Essence of the Red
– Calen bestows a blessing of Alexstrasza upon the raid, granting all players 100% melee, ranged, and spell haste, and causing them to regain 5% of their maximum mana per second. Essence of the Red lasts for 3 min.

Wrack
– Sinestra causes a random player to suffer Shadow damage every 2 sec. for 1 min. with the damage taken increasing rapidly. When a player dispels Wrack, it bounces to two nearby allies of the afflicted player. Wrack retains its remaining duration but returns to its original damage values.Successfully dispelling Wrack instantly finishes the cooldown of the caster's single-target Magic dispel abilities.

Flame Breath
– Sinestra unleashes a torrent of flame that sweeps across her platform, dealing 19950 to 22050 Fire damage to all enemies.

Twilight Slicer
– Sinestra summons two shadowy orbs, each of which fixates on a player and begins to pursue that player. These spheres are linked together by a cutting beam of pure twilight energy that inflicts 12025 to 13975 Shadow damage per 5 sec. to any player who comes into contact with the beam.Each sphere also pulses twilight energy, inflicting 7020 to 8580 Shadow damage every 0.5 sec in a 5 yard radius. The orbs dissipate after 15 sec.

Twilight Whelps
– Sinestra periodically calls forth a set of five Twilight Whelps to attack intruders.

Twilight Spit
– The Twilight Whelps spit shadowy bile on their target, inflicting 741 to 819 Shadow damage and increasing the target's Shadow damage taken by 10%. This effect stacks.

Twilight Essence
– When a Twilight Whelp dies, the essence instilled in it by Sinestra leaks out, forming a bubbling puddle beneath its corpse. If this essence touches any other dead Twilight Whelp, that Whelp reanimates. Each pool of Twilight Essence expands over time. The pools inflict 2590 to 3010 Shadow damage every 2 sec.